Tuesday, June 2, 2009

Two Sentence Tuesday: Fantasy Edition (2 June 2009)

I'm still listening to The Lies of Locke Lamora and, as such, it's a bit difficult to pick out a pair of sentences. There are quite a few I like. One is at the 2:44 hour mark in part II. You know that one, don't you? ;-)

The format of Scott Lynch's book is interesting. There's the main story (where Locke is an adult) and then he adds in interludes. The interludes, so far, is the story of how Lamora as a young boy got in with the group called the Gentlemen Bastards. It's very "Lost"-like: they are flashbacks. So far, no flash-forwards. A part of me thinks this is just Lynch's way of adding exposition without going through the motions of an information dump. There was one in particular that was like that. Others were better. When I finish, I'll give my thoughts.

For my two sentences, three actually, I've decided to post the next paragraph to my steampunk book I started in a previous Two Sentence Tuesday post.
The murderer Serkis leaped down from his perch on the wall, his shoes smacking the cold floor and sending curls of dust into the air. He shuffled towards Kionell, who was chained to the floor by the invisible bonds of the trance the murderer had placed upon him, and then past him. The fluttering grew louder until the Serkis held the dying bird in front of Kionell's face. Kionell and the bird held each other's gaze, each knowing that they would die today.
I know the last sentence is a bit melodramatic and I'll probably cut it later but that's where it is now.

I'm not the only one offering up a twofer today. Head on over to Women of Mystery for more.

6 comments:

  1. I dig melodramatic and your lines continue to grip. "Sending curls of dust" and "invisible bonds of the trance" are nice descriptive touches.

    ReplyDelete
  2. David - I like melodramatic stuff, too. BTW, where are *you're* sentences?

    ReplyDelete
  3. I'm echoing David. Not too melodramatic for me, and I've read steampunk, etc. I like the feel of this very much.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Clare2e - Thanks for the props. I'm muddling my way through it. As I do, I find myself moving slightly more to the pulp side while still maintaining a steampunk feel. My first big change is the city: it isn't London (I don't think, anyway). And I think it's going to be alt-history.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Leave the last line in for effect and it's perfectly creepy.

    ReplyDelete

Book Review: Perdido Street Station by China Mieville

(Even though this is a cross-post, there might be genre-specific discussions that would better be served here at SF Safari than at my other ...